Top Notch Agent ; A Criminal Minds Fanfic

The Tribe

Y/n's POV

"Hey. Who's that in Hotch's office?" I ask Derek as I took a sip of coffee.

"Hotch's brother," Derek replied.

I choked on my coffee and sat up straighter, wiping the liquid from my lips. "That's Sean Hotchner?"

"Uh, yeah. Why?" Derek questioned.

"He's kinda cute," I admit.

"So what am I? Chopped liver?" Derek implored jokingly.

I laughed softly. "You, Derek, are smoking hot, but don't tell Brody. He'll get jealous." A few minutes later, it was time for our briefing, so the whole team gathered in the conference room to get caught up on our new case.

"Terra Mesa New Mexico, five dead, all from Mesa University. No signs of sexual assault and no sign of theft," JJ told us. 

"Five 19 year olds, minimal defensive wounds. One of them was impaled in a 6-foot wooden pole," Derek noted as he scanned the file. 

"Who would want to torture five college freshmen?" Elle quizzed. 

"They weren't tied up and no one escaped? No single unsub could have exerted as much control over so many people," Spencer pointed out. "I think we're looking at a pack." 

"A pack?" JJ questioned. 

"Three or more that kill in unison," Spencer clarified. "As in nature, the group dynamic dictates that the pack's survival is dependent on their ability to hunt successfully." 

"And, as in nature, a pack will keep on killing until it runs out of prey or is stopped," Hotch continued. 

I frowned. "Stopped by what?" 

"A stronger pack," Gideon responded.

Terra Mesa, New Mexico

"Sheriff Rhodes, I'm Special Agent Hotchner and these are Agents Reid, Gideon, and L/n," Hotch greeted. 

"I was hoping there were more of you," Rhodes confessed. 

"The other agents went straight to station house to look at the victims' files. Has Forensics had any luck?" Hotch asked. 

"The county CSU went through for prints and trace evidence, They said with all the work, by tramping here looking at footprints would be a waste," Rhodes answered.

"I'm gonna go look around on my own, if you don't mind," I tell Hotch.

"Go ahead. We'll meet you out back," Hotch said. I nodded and left the team to examine the outside of the house. Nothing in particular caught my eye until I got to the backyard, where a wooden stake was sticking out of the ground covered in blood. The team met up with me as I got a closer look at the stake, glancing at every part of it.

"He was like the others. The coroner said from the amount of blood, he was alive when they impaled him," Rhodes informed us. 

"I know this is gonna sound strange, but the way the victims were flayed alive, mutilated, and now the impalement display of this last victim....." Spencer trailed off. "These were all war rituals of the Native American Plains Indians." 

"That means something to you Sheriff?" Hotch questioned. 

"I'll say! Everything you see around, this is Apache land! This whole basin is a sacred burial ground, and was the sight of a number of massacres as I understand," Rhodes explained. "It was their land, but they didn't have the money or the inclination to build on it, so the town seized the half of it."